Little Sister
by BeatrixPlotter
Summary: Alice dreams of a little girl and her 'monster' in a decrepit underwater city. But what does it all mean?


**Little Sister**

'Daddy, is that you? I knew it was you. You never leave me alone with the monsters.'

She holds out a filthy hand. Her dress is ragged and sodden from walking through all the leaks in this city, but she doesn't notice. Her bare feet are wounded and then instantly healed as she walks across broken glass from ancient battles. She tracks down dead bodies and happily impales them with the enormous needle she is equipped with, but she calls them 'angels'. And as for her daddy... he isn't really her daddy.

'Are we going to be together again?'

The hulking not-daddy being groans, a drawn out, wailing kind of noise. Almost like whale song. It's eerie and comforting at the same time, somehow. It leans down and picks up the little girl. It could crush her easily in those enormous hands, but it does not. It holds her gently, and then places her on its shoulder. She giggles.

'Hop hop Mr. B! The angels are calling!'

Alice jolted awake, heart racing, shaking. It was that nightmare again. She got up slowly, and went to the bathroom for a drink. Every single night, this happened. The same dream, that little girl, that hulking great monster. Her hands shook slightly as she drew water from the tap into a cracked tumbler. What did it all mean?

Everything in the dream was so real, so vivid. Alice could remember the eerie, blue light cast over everything she saw like an overlay. The feel of water dripping down onto her shoulders as she watched the unlikely pair go about their 'work'. The silence of the place, broken only by the faint noise in the distance, something that sounded like... well, like screaming.

She shuddered.

Here she was again. From where she stood, she could see the little girl riding the monster's shoulder, clinging onto his helmet and singing away to him cheerily as they toured the remains of the city. She followed them, wanting to see where they were going. As they carried on, she saw a lone man hiding behind a pillar as they walked past. She looked straight into his eyes, but he didn't see her. His face was mangled, his clothes filthy. He was terrified. His eyes darted from the monster to the gun he held in his hand, over and over, as if trying to work himself up for something. As they walked past, he obviously had screwed up his courage, as he jumped out and confronted them.

'Hey! Let her go! She's mine!'

The man held the gun before him, trembling. The monster considered him for a moment, and then turned away. The man's aim faltered for a moment, but he resolved himself.

'HEY!'

He ran up and hit the monster with the butt of the gun. The thing was so tall that he only managed to hit his elbow, and she was amazed that it had even felt it. It turned around again, the portholes in its helmet starting to glow an angry red. The man stepped back in alarm at this, but then darted forward and grabbed for the girl. Big mistake.

The monster roared. It lifted the girl with one hand and placed her behind it, and then it brought its attention back to her potential kidnapper. The man's knees buckled, and he fell to the ground heavily. 'Please, please no' he begged, 'I just need a little bit, just a little bit...'

His pleas fell on deaf ears. The monster raised up the enormous drill it wore over one arm, and started it up. He began to bring it down upon the man, that helpless person on the ground...

She looked away, but she couldn't block out the noise.

Alice clocked in at the department store and walked over to her spot, the perfume counter. The store was done up for Christmas, fairy lights twinkling from every available surface, Santas beaming down upon the happy shoppers, fake snow glittering from the windows. Every time she saw it all, her heart sank. There was no Christmas for her, really.

'Hey, Alice! What's wrong with you? You look like death!'

'Morning Jane. Thanks for the compliment.' She managed a wan smile.

Jane looked at her curiously. 'No, seriously, you look awful. What's wrong with you?'

'Ah, nothing. Just not sleeping very well'. Alice affixed her name badge to her blouse and began rummaging under the tills, hoping Jane would leave her alone.

'Really? You should go see someone about it, you know, They can give you pills for that now.'

'Pills? Ugh, no thank you. I don't do medication'.

'Whatever you say darling. But don't say I didn't try to help'. She grinned at her. 'Well, it's Christmas soon! What are you doing? Going home, I bet'.

Alice sighed. 'No, I'm not.' She prayed inwardly that Jane would drop this, too.

'You're not? I don't believe it. Why ever not? Fight with your dad?' She laughed.

'No, Jane. I don't have any parents. That's why'. She didn't mean to be blunt, but God, the woman was nosy! Please, please drop it now, she thought.

Jane was slightly taken aback. 'Oh'. Then she turned away and began to help a customer. Alice breathed a sigh of relief.

'Come on, Daddy! Come on!' The little girl tugged at the monster's giant hand. She was so tiny compared to it; all she could do was pull on its index finger. It followed along, not seeming to mind too much. As she watched them, she realised there was something wrong with that girl. Her eyes... her eyes glowed. They were a dull yellow, radiating out from her skull, making her look almost skeletal for a moment. She looked so awful. Whatever was going on though, she was still a child, and it was heart wrenching to watch her.

'Look, Daddy! An angel!' She skipped over to a corpse lying on the ground nearby. They were in a particularly dilapidated part of the city. A sign nearby advertised the 'Little Sisters Orphanage'. It was peeling away from the wall, and the smiling face of the little girl in the picture was growing mouldy.

The girl knelt down next to the body, and began stabbing it with that horrible needle of hers. She was extracting something, she saw. It was bright red, but it wasn't blood. It wasn't the right texture, she thought. It glowed slightly, just like the little girl. The monster stood nearby, guarding her. It cares for her, she realised. It keeps her safe. How hideous.

As the girl worked, someone was approaching. They walked slowly and carefully, obviously trying not to alarm the monster. It was a woman, in her forties maybe, dressed in a tattered sundress and matching pumps. A string of pearls hung around her neck. She got about six feet away, then knelt down beside a trash can to hide herself, and whispered, 'Alice?'

She jumped. The little girl took no notice. She was now drinking whatever she'd extracted from that dead body. She gulped it down greedily, and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She then noticed the woman nearby.

'Alice! Come here darling!' The woman looked delighted. The little girl backed away, staring at her. She clearly didn't recognise this woman at all, but she kept on at her. 'Come on, it's me! It's your mummy!'

Alice felt a sick jolt in the pit of her stomach.

The woman, clearly tiring of the girl not answering to her, dived for her. The little girl began screaming, a loud, shrill, piercing scream that rent the air. The monster came charging over, shaking the ground with its heavy footsteps, and flung the woman away from the girl. She went flying and hit the wall of an old chemist's building nearby.

She thought, she must be dead. She must be.

However, the woman stood up. Her left arm hung at a crooked angle by her side, and a large wound bled freely from her temple. She limped forward again, staring the monster down.

'That is _my _child, not yours' she hissed. The little girl whimpered by the monster's gigantic leg. The monster itself stared back impassively, as well as it could. Did it even have eyes?

'Give her back to me, you kidnapping son of a bitch' she demanded. 'She's my _daughter!' _With this last sentence, she made a last grab for the child. The monster was quicker. He deftly grabbed her in one hand and pulled her up. She kicked and screamed, but there was no way she could free herself.

The drill started again.

Alice watched, watched as the monster tore the drill straight through this woman, the girl's mother, ripping the life out of her. She screamed at first, but soon she was quiet. And the little girl? She just watched. There was no expression on her face at all. Whatever she was seeing, it wasn't the evisceration of this defenceless woman.

The monster threw what was left of her to the ground. It looked to the girl, as if asking what to do now.

'Come on, Daddy!' she said, beginning to tug him again. 'Let's go find some angels!'

Alice jolted upright in her bed. Oh God, it all made sense now, it was all coming back... living in that horrendous city, the men who took her away, who injected her and implanted that thing inside her... that's what had happened to her!

She hadn't remembered any of her childhood before the age of eight until now. Whatever they'd done to her, it had blocked her memory. When she'd strained to remember, all she could recall was a deep hunger, the need to recover... something.

Now she knew. The memories had come out of hiding from the deepest recesses of her mind and now she knew everything.

She climbed out of bed and paced the room. She remembered the other monster, who wasn't a monster, really. He'd been different to the others. He'd taken her 'daddy' down and adopted her himself, saved her, killed the thing inside her that had changed her into that little demon, sent her to the surface...

Whatever he'd done though, he was too late for her mother.


End file.
